


Blood, Sweat & Tears

by tromana



Series: Fall to Grace [6]
Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Angst, F/M, Introspection, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 04:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tromana/pseuds/tromana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pain of realizing you love somebody, but knowing there's a wedge between you and there's not much you can do about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood, Sweat & Tears

He thinks she’s driving herself crazy for him.

Or at least, that’s what she guesses he thinks. She cannot work it out precisely without specifically asking. After all, she cannot do the crazy mind tricks and read people’s body language. She’s not him. But she does know him well and like him, she does get hunches. They’re just less specific than any he has.

Lisbon has started learning when he’s lying, at any rate.

And everything about him is lying right now. He says he doesn’t care about anything else and that he’s only here for Red John. She and him, they’re friends but nothing more and nothing less.

That’s not what his lips say when they make a big break in a case though. It’s not what his hands say whenever they brush up against her body as they walk side by side. It’s not what his eyes say when he spots her first thing in the morning.

Maybe, Lisbon surmises, he’s rubbing off on her. Or maybe, she’s just had these skills all along and they have been lying, latent, within the back of her mind.

Or, more likely, it’s him and him alone that she can read. They are so in sync that people often mistook them for an old married couple, much to her chagrin. Sometimes, she privately agrees that they might as well be, but not very often. And although he may well have been denying what he really thinks, she knows precisely what she feels about him.

And thus, he probably knows that she knows how she feels.

To him, she’s translucent, after all.

Lisbon pretends that this doesn’t bother her. In fact, she pretends that nothing has changed at all. Her feelings haven’t bloomed and grown into something completely different than they were at the start. She remembers a time when she was wary and distrustful of him. There was a time when she knew how to keep him (and consequently, other people) at arm’s length. She remembers when she hadn’t practically sacrificed her career in order to keep him afloat.

But she also remembers just how hard it was to work like that. How stubborn she was. How much of his behavior she simply misunderstood.

Letting him in had seemed like the lesser of two evils.

At the time, she had never imagined she could do such a thing as fall in love with him. She’d always thought herself too sensible for such a thing.

But it’s happened. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Like him, she works on the Red John case on her own. The only way he’ll be able to move on is if he can put those demons to bed. Lisbon doesn’t want to lose him in the process, so closing it on her own is the only way she can stop him from doing anything stupid.

Because that’s what they do.

She knows that she needs to stop Jane from going too far.

He helps her to see what she couldn’t on her own.

They work better together, anyway

xxx

He needs to keep her at arm’s length.

It’s safer, that way.

Every time Jane gets too close to somebody, he loses them.

Angela.

Charlotte.

Kristina.

He refuses point blank to add Teresa Lisbon to that list. It’s just too high a cost.

It requires a superhuman amount of effort for him to keep away somebody as persistent as Lisbon. However, he knows that it’s worth it. Every day he sees her at work, every time she smiles at him, every time she lectures him and tells him off for his misdemeanors is another day that Red John hasn’t stolen her away from him.

Jane has known about the target painted on her back for far longer than she has.

He didn’t tell her any sooner than he needed to, simply because he didn’t want the knowledge eating her up from inside. It’s doing enough damage to him anyway.

Somewhere along the line, he’s fallen in love with her. In a way, it almost feels like it was inevitable. However, as long as Red John is out there, he knows he cannot have her. Then, there’s no chance that he’ll ever be able to keep hold of her.

It’s why he spends many hours alone in the attic, working laboriously hard on the Red John case. This isn’t just about revenge; in truth, it hasn’t been for a long, long while. Now, it’s about reclaiming his future, meaning he can actually _have_ one instead of living in this state of limbo.

Ever since gunning down the wrong man, he’s been planning on giving Red John up to her. She doesn’t know it yet. In fact, she believes that he’s as determined to kill the serial killer as ever.

What he does know, however, is that she sees straight through his petty lies.

Somewhere along the line, she has learned how to read him. Not as well as he can read her, of course, but well enough. She knows how he feels about her. Lisbon realizes that he is constantly denying it and pushing her away as a consequence. Every time he does so, his heart breaks just a little. There’s nothing more he wants than to be able to take her into his arms and never let her go.

But somehow, even something as simple as a mere hug seems like it could be too risky.

Hugs with Lisbon could lead to anything and he knows it.

Sometimes, he thinks it would be safer for the both of them if he just left. Worked on the Red John case alone. Forgot about what it was like to be around her virtually all day, every day. He’s a dangerous figure to be associated with and Jane’s sick of seeing the people he cares about being hurt because of his folly.

Jane still needs her in his life though.

She tempers his spirit, brings a calming air into his life.

He gives her more of a zest for life in return.

In a way, he needs her.

She once said ‘we’re a team’ and he agrees wholeheartedly.


End file.
